A Chink in Your Armor (satire)

I grew up in a small town called Aldergrove.

In that town in the late 1960s, everyone knew your business, except my family was Japanese. Within earshot, the racists who resented us would mutter, "Dirty Jap!"

Little did they know, few of the Japanese Canadian were disloyal to Canada, which shows you how little they knew us!

Once in high school, one of the more ignorant white kids might mistake me for Chinese, and call me "Chink". This amused me so much that I quickly retorted, "That is because I am a chink in your armor!"

Indeed, the Asian immigrants of Canada fit in the chinks in the multicultural chain mail coat of the white majority, though sometimes a racist incident may shake off the flakes of Canadian society.

Thankfully, my memories of high school are rather selective, for there are stories that lay buried in my subconscious to inspire a few of my articles on this blog.

Though I may tell these small-town stories in metaphorically symbolic terms using mytho-poetic language while shielding the guilty from embarrassment to protect the innocent from harm.

Oh, there shall be no naming of names, but in order for me to come to terms with the demons of my past, this marks the beginning of that journey through a small-town world that I thought I had forgotten.

Having a chink in your armor means that if the lance of Truth meets its mark, the ignorance about Japanese Canadians will fall away.

For I am but a Canadian born Japanese who may have some truth telling to give life to future stories on his blog.

How to Simplify Your Life

Just figure out how much you can live without.

At your current job, squirrel away at least $30,000. Then move to a a small town where the closest hospital is 50 miles away and there is one doctor in town. The town's population should be 5,000 or less.

Rent is going to be cheaper than any city with 50,000+. $300 or less a month! A unit in a trailer park might go for $20,000 with an annual property tax of $100. With the $10,000 left over, you have 10 months to secure a job assuming $200/month for food & bare minimum necessities of life (wood for wood-burning stove).

The worst that could happen is dying from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Oh yes! Buy thermal underwear and bear-proof your garbge containers.